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Measuring the Unmeasurable

Clifton College asks ‘Isn't it time to move the A Level debate on?’

Clifton College pupils have, once again, achieved excellent results in their A Levels this summer. As a result ten bright young boys and girls have confirmed their places at Oxford and Cambridge: others have secured places at Imperial, UCL, Warwick and other “top ten” UK universities. Clifton’s pupils took 425 A levels this year and achieved a 100% pass rate. These results are in keeping with Clifton College’s pupils’ excellent achievements over the last 5 years.

Interestingly at a time when the CBI rightly warns of the consequences of the decreasing numbers of good scientists produced by our education system, Maths (with 67 entries), Sciences (106 entries) and Economics (48) comprised 52% of all of the exams taken at Clifton and produced no fewer than 112 A grades.

Despite these hugely creditable results, particularly in “crunchy” subjects, the Head Master, Mark Moore, challenges the educational establishment to move on from the annual and increasingly sterile debate about A Level standards. Perhaps, he argues, it is time to ask what educational achievement is really all about – and how best to measure it on a broader basis.

"The problem with measuring educational success by comparative tables of results is that it means schools are working to an agenda set in the early 1990s and not an agenda that answers to our needs as an economy and a society in the 2010s and beyond. One consequence of the goal oriented pursuit of A grades is that some pupils are discouraged from sitting more ‘difficult’ subjects such as maths and sciences. Another perhaps more serious consequence is that there has been a narrowing of concentration upon grades at the expense of developing young peoples’ characters and personalities. Success and well being in life, public and personal, as we all know, is about so much more than exam results, and it is time that schools were free to address a more appropriate 21st century agenda.”

Mark continues, “The trouble is that there is no conventional or obvious way to measure unmeasurable life skills. We need to engage with pupils, parents, the educational sector and opinion formers, such as employers, arts, sports and sciences bodies to find out what people think we should be measuring, and how, to develop the potential of today’s pupils and bring an end to League tables which reveal only a fragment of a much bigger picture.”

15 August 2008

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